Dr Zoe Dyson, a computational and laboratory microbiologist and assistant professor with the Department of Infection Biology of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, presented a talk at the July meeting of the bioinformatics pipelines and visualization working group. In her presentation, titled ‘Leveraging Phylodynamics to Understand the Emergence and Spread of Enteric Fever Pathogens’, Dyson offered an introduction to the discipline of phylodynamics, explored the tools and analysis techniques available today, and looked at the application of phylodynamics to not only enteric fever, but bacterial pathogens in general.
Dyson began with an introduction to phylodynamics, explaining that it is related to phylogenomics, a field that studies the genetic relationships between different “biological entities”. In a field now known as molecular phylogenomics, she explained, molecular data from biological entities are used to infer evolutionary relationships between organisms. As a concept, phylogenomics is hardly new, Dyson noted. Far from it. Charles Darwin (quite literally) illustrated what a rudimentary phylogenetic tree would look like as far back in 1837.
In the past, physical traits such as bird beaks were used as a means to explore familial connections between organisms and draw up these evolutionary trees, added Dyson. Today, in the age of mass sequencing, nucleotide or amino acid sequences are the yardsticks of choice. As an offshoot of phylogenomics, the term phylodynamics was first coined in 2004. It was first conceived of as a means to bring together branches such as immunodynamics, epidemiology and evolutionary biology.
“And the reason we might want to bring together these different concepts and different disciplines is that by bringing all of this information and knowledge and techniques together,” said Dyson, “we can better understand the evolution of microbial resistance and virulence.” This can shape the design of vaccines and drugs, and shed some light on new public health threats.
Find Dyson’s presentation on YouTube
